The first thing that wowed Karyna about Vilnius when she first arrived from Minsk was its narrow streets, which looked like they were the guardians of hundred-year-old secrets, and the general atmosphere shrouding the entire city. She liked the university where she had decided to study law from the very first day too. Naturally, the fact that her native city of Minsk was just a few hours away by train also helped her to make this decision. Today, Karyna is happy that she decided to settle in a foreign country and tells us how she went about starting her life here, what is surprising about Lithuanians and what Belarus could learn from its neighbour.

Photo from Karyna’s personal archive

A piece of her homeland in Lithuania

Karyna’s decision to study in Lithuania was determined by the fact that the European Humanities University of Belarus was in Vilnius – the same university that was previously located in Minsk. However, due to restrictions of its academic freedom, the university decided to relocate to Lithuania.

“I left Minsk when I was only seventeen. Although I wanted to study abroad, I did not want to go very far away, so, Vilnius was the perfect choice. I liked the idea that I would be able to live in one of the oldest European cities and would have the opportunity to familiarise myself with the common history of Lithuania and Belarus. After all, some time ago we were one country”, says Karyna.

Foreign language – key to finding a job

When she was still in school, Karyna tried several jobs: she sewed toys, worked as a waitress and even worked as a courier. Karyna, who started her Master’s studies this year, was finally able to start looking for a job in Lithuania, seeing that at long last she has some free time. However, the search was not easy.

“I was searching for a job with a lot of conditions of my own. Firstly, I do not speak Lithuanian. Secondly, I am a student and cannot work full-time. Foreigners often get jobs in positions where a foreign language other than English is needed. Those coming from other countries can look for jobs where their native language is required, but this didn’t apply to me. In the Lithuanian labour market, there is no shortage of Belarussian or Russian-speakers. I was saved by my knowledge of German”, she says.

She speaks German and has spent a year in Germany, where she learnt about the culture of the country. According to Karyna, it was the language and experience abroad, which particularly helped her to stand out from other candidates. She is now working for an international company, Transcom Worldwide Vilnius, which provides contact centre services. Karyna says that she has found her favourite job and the staff are like her family.

“I did not want to neglect my studies and I was fortunate to land a job where I could have a flexible schedule. Furthermore, the company’s internal culture and attitude to employees are a great incentive for students. For example, it is always possible to have a day off for examinations or other study-related commitments.

Another fear of mine was that I might feel isolated and different from the rest of the staff: I only speak a few words of Lithuanian, and my work colleagues here do not speak Russian. Although we all speak English, for some reason I thought that it would be difficult to communicate. As it turned out, I could not have been more wrong – today, these people are my friends, they are always there to help and give advice”, says Karyna.

Would miss the never-ending festivals and the Mount of Gediminas

Although Karyna herself does not have much experience of this kind of work, she says that she rarely hears her friends and acquaintances talking of such a fun and exciting working culture and atmosphere as the one she is working in. When asked about the main differences between Lithuania and Belarus, she says that she was particularly surprised by the interactions between work colleagues.

“I was very pleasantly surprised: in Lithuania, it is customary to celebrate your birthday, Christmas or Valentine’s Day with colleagues. On International Women’s Day, colleagues spoiled us with coffee and muffins and good wishes. In Belarus, events such as these are not celebrated at work and colleagues rarely congratulate each other on their birthdays”, said Karyna.

Besides her work colleagues, Karyna says she would miss the Mount of Gediminas the most, were she to leave Lithuania. This site, rarely visited by Vilnius locals, holds a particular fascination for her.

“This is a romantic place where I come to admire the whole city and to watch planes landing. This scenery opens up in the evening, when the lights are switched on. Unfortunately, access to the castle was limited in winter, and this was yet another reason to wait for the spring”, Karyna says of her favourite spot in the city.

When asked what advice she would give to any of her countrymen coming to Lithuania, Karyna said she has noticed that Belarusians mostly come to buy things rather than to sightsee and gain new experiences.

“I realise why people do this –most of the goods people buy in Lithuania cost substantially more in Belarus or are not available at all. However, I would strongly advise them to spend more time on leisure and seeing Lithuania, which indeed has many things to show”, concludes Karyna.

In December 2016, Transcom Shared Service Center Vilnius (SSC) decided to organize a fund raising for a good purpose – to support an initiative of building a home for families of the children with oncological diseases.

Every year about 100 children under 18 are diagnosed with cancer in Lithuania. Recovering from this disease takes from half a year up to several years, depending on how advanced the cancer is. When the child gets ill – the whole family is affected by this illness as well. Only one parent can stay with the child in the hospital, while other family members stay apart. To ease the situation for these families and give them a possibility to get through this rough time in their lives standing strong together we invited the whole Shared Service Center to contribute to the project of building a home! This home will be located near the biggest oncological center in Lithuania.Here the families will get medical care from pediatricians, pain specialists, medics,oncologists, but they will also have access to different art and music therapies. The aim with the home is to help families get better both physically and emotionally.

Transcom’s fund raising event was initiated together with fun activities for the whole department including snacks, fun videos remembering what we achieved in 2016 and what we are looking forward to in 2017. Also, we received many cheerful Christmas video greetings from our colleagues we work with daily from all over Europe, the Philippines and North America – really building a feeling of One Transcom! During this wonderful time of the year we are so happy to contribute to making good things happen.

Every year, the Transcom Lithuania team engages in an interesting, informative and usually highly entertaining talent search. This spring was no exception – we searched for talents in the Career days of the 7 biggest universities in Vilnius and Kaunas, where we had an opportunity to chat with nearly 600 students.

It isn’t surprising at all that one of the most important things for students is the ability to manage both their studies and work. Many believed that this was a mission impossible and therefore were surprised and happy to see that at Transcom, that’s not an issue at all. Our current employees, who are students themselves, joined our HR team at the event to share their experiences of how easy it actually is to combine studies with working at Transcom. Their enthusiasm, real-life stories and fun facts prove that not only is Transcom a friendly and informal organization, but it also makes a lot of effort to be as flexible as possible and allow students to combine work with studies.

It gets better – our chats with students not only proved that working and studying is not impossible, but it also showed that the first job doesn’t have to be a temp job. Over 80% of our managers have been promoted internally and most of them started working while studying!

All in all, this spring’s talent search was very fruitful – not only did we manage to debunk a couple of myths regarding work and studies, but some of the new talents we spoke to have already joined our team. So is working while studying a mission impossible? At Transcom it’s definitely not!

Transcom Lithuania is happy and proud to announce that we were recognized at the National Responsible Business Awards 2015, organized by the Ministry of Social Security and Labor of the Republic of Lithuania, as a “Workplace of the Year”. The awards were given to national and foreign companies operating in Lithuania to recognize the contribution to socially responsible practices and initiatives that benefit companies and society by strengthening social welfare as well as minimizing negative impact on the environment.

This year, the National Responsible Business Awards were presented in five categories – “Workplace of the Year”, “The Most Socially Oriented Company of the Year”, “Environment-friendly Company of the Year”, and the main category – “The Socially Responsible Company of the Year”. To further promote the importance of healthy lifestyle, this year the award of “The Most Athletic Company of the Year” was also introduced.

Transcom Lithuania was awarded with a “Workplace of the Year” certificate, which acknowledges that our work environment is based on honesty, accountability and socially responsible practices, designed to strengthen social awareness. It’s a great honor to be recognized among leading companies in the market for applying the values and practices that are rooted in Transcom’s culture. Transparency, honesty, a high level of accountability and promotion of socially responsible practices throughout all aspects of our daily work has long since been ingrained in Transcom’s culture and we are therefore pleased to be recognized and to contribute to our society as a socially responsible workplace.

Transcom Lithuania representatives together with Algimanta Pabedinskienė Minister of Social Security and Labor of the Republic of Lithuania (second from the left)

For a valuable client in the logistics market, Transcom Netherlands received two awards in the “2014 Global Customer Service Competition”. The award was announced March 25 during a yearly review with all the client’s inhouse sites and vendors. In total, 26 sites where in the race for prestigious prices based on sales leads, business balanced scorecard performance and customer experience.

First we won the second price in the balance scorecard competition. For this competition they measure Service Level Adherence, Line adherence, Quality, AHT, Attrition, Sales and Forecast accuracy. All relevant KPIs are included and that’s why we can make the conclusion that Transcom Groningen was the second best site in 2014. This is a great recognition for all the good work we have done in all areas.

We also won the award of being third in the Sales Leads competition. This category is about the total number of sales leads that our agents have created related to the total number of handled calls. For the client these sales are of the highest priority. This is because these activities extend their customer base and generate constant growth of their package volumes and thus revenue.

I am very proud of these awards and recognition of the hard work done and thank the entire management team and all the employees that have contributed to this success. I am convinced that this year we will do our utmost to be in the position to win an award again and to show Transcom’s additional value to our client.

Besides this, we would like to congratulate our colleagues from Transom Lithuania who won the third award for Customer Experience. This category is related to the measure of Customer Satisfaction.

Transcom Lithuania has joined a professional volunteering initiative called “Kam To Reikia?!” (“Who needs it?!), aiming to help students understand the value the subjects they study at school will have in their future life thereby increasing their motivation to study and assisting them in choosing a career path.

There is a significant gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application. This initiative helps in bridging those seemingly separate areas into something the students can understand and own. Through giving lessons at school and inviting students for shadowing, we try to show students the meaning of studying through real-life examples, explaining how knowledge gained in school can be applied in daily processes at work.

But it’s not only about the knowledge. During the lessons, we discuss different ways of preparing for their career while still being a student. Mainly, we speak about recruitment process and competencies, with a special emphasis on attitude, which is often overlooked by young people.

Transcom is a company that often values willingness to learn, potential, positivity and other traits more than professional skills. This is very important to young people who want to start their career, but don’t have any experience. That is where attitude becomes crucial and that’s exactly the message we try to convey to students – it’s not always about what you know or can do, but rather who you are and what you want to do.

By shadowing at Transcom, students experience a day at a contact center. They get to experience our environment, speak to our people and gain firsthand knowledge of what is required to become part of our team. We show them our “real-life” picture and it’s a great pleasure that, by the time they’re leaving, many of them promise that when they start looking for their first job – Transcom will definitely be the first on their list.

It is very satisfying to connect with young people and feel that we are making a difference in their lives.